How can you stay connected to work and home with your mobile phone while you’re on the road? The first question to ask is which network to go with — CDMA or GSM? If you are on the road mostly in capital cities or in metropolitan areas, GSM seems to be the obvious choice. If you travel outside these areas, CDMA becomes the choice. If you do a bit of both, consider having two handsets (and hence two mobile numbers) — one for GSM and one for CDMA. Sometimes you can find dual-mode handsets supporting both GSM and CDMA. Such handsets eliminate the need to have two mobile numbers and switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks whenever the quality of reception of one network becomes low.

The next thing is to choose a carrier that has good coverage in the area you travel. Most major carriers have good coverage throughout UK. Some carriers, provide you good coverage through roaming arrangements with other carriers. Roaming arrangements can give you wider coverage, but they can also incur higher roaming charges. You should choose a carrier that has good coverage with little or no roaming arrangements.

For the road warrior, a professional car kit is essential. The car kit comes with a handset cradle, an adaptor to your cigarette lighter for power, microphones, and connecting wires. For best performance, you should install a car kit made by the original manufacturer or one that lets you connect to an external antenna. Reception can improve dramatically when you have an external antenna, especially if you frequently travel outside metropolitan areas.

Unfortunately, professional car kits don’t come cheap. You will also need a technician to install them. Yet another problem with professional car kits is they are made for a particular handset or a group of handsets with the same type of connecting ports. In other words, you can’t change handsets once you install a professional car kit. In fact, some people are reluctant to change cars because they’re stuck with their car kits.

Nowadays, you can find generic car kits that connect to external antennas. One advantage of generic car kits, besides the lower cost, is they are not locked to a particular handset. You can use any handset, provided you also purchase an adaptor, which is sold separately. You can also purchase Bluetooth car kits, which eliminate all the wiring.

Some new cars come with fully integrated car kits. All you need to do is to put a SIM card into a slot in the dashboard and start driving. The best part is you don’t need your handset to make calls.

For those who travel only in cities or want to keep things simple, you can purchase a hands-free device or use the speakerphone option available with most phones for your communication needs. A Bluetooth headset is even more convenient. The hands-free device or Bluetooth headset lets you handle calls in the car easily. It’s especially convenient if you must make frequent stops and leave the car for short periods.